Categories and Catalogs Overview

Revised 9/12/00

Item Categories

Item Categories are a way of grouping inventory items for reporting, planning, costing and inventory
management activities. Item Categories is a Key Flexfield that must be defined during the inventory
application setup.

 Define Value Sets and Values-A Value Set is a listing of valid Values that defines a
characteristic and may be used in a flexfield segment. The Values within a Value Set are
validated against when setting up categories.

 Define Item Category Key Flexfield Segments and Structures-Multiple segment structures can
be defined for the Item Categories Key Flexfield. Each segment can have its own prompts and
fields.

NOTE: This work guide assumes the user has some basic Oracle Flexfield knowledge.

 Define Categories and Category Sets-Used to group items together for reports and programs.
A category is a logical classification of items that have similar characteristics such as plastic,
metals, etc. Categories use the flexfield structure, and are composed of the different Values
associated with each flexfield segments’ Value Set. Category Sets are groupings of Categories.
Typical category sets are inventory, materials, purchasing, costing, and planning.

Item Catalogs

Item Catalogs are used to add descriptive information to items, and to partition the Item Master into
groups of items that share common characteristics. Catalogs allow you to use a standard language in
referring to items, store detailed descriptions of what an item is, and allow you to update the item
description with a concatenated value of the catalog group information (see Flexfield Manual). A
Catalog can also be used as a descriptive element for search criteria, and help you find common
existing parts when developing an engineering prototype.

 Define Item Catalog Groups-Used to group items that share common characteristics. You can
set up as many distinct item catalog groups as needed to Partition the Item Master. Each group
has unique characteristics, called descriptive elements that describe items belonging to the
group.

 Define Descriptive Elements-Any number of Descriptive Elements can be defined for an item
Catalog Group. You can also make the element required at item definition, and whether the
element value is included by default in the item catalog description.

 Define Aliases-Any number of Aliases can be specified for items in a catalog group. These are
used for information and reporting purposes only.
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Categories and Catalogs Overview
Revised 9/12/00

 Define Recommended Categories-Any number of Recommended Categories can be specified for

an item catalog group. These are used for information and reporting purposes only.

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Copyright  2000 KPMG Consulting, LLC
All Rights Reserved.